


your eyes tell

by lightningmcqveer



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, i aint ever seen two pretty best friends, its always one of them gotta be dramatic and leave the country after a break up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27884884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningmcqveer/pseuds/lightningmcqveer
Summary: oikawa tooru has seen colour for as long as he can remember. his earliest memory is of green grey eyes, a small wail, a hand on his stomach, and iwaizumi hajime.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Oikawa Tooru/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 48





	your eyes tell

  
  


  
  
  
  


hajime waves at planes in the sky.

they had been bug hunting when hajime stopped abruptly, causing tooru to crash in his back, lose his footing, and crash.

when he turns his gaze back to him, hajime's unconcerned, waving brightly at the clear blue vastness. tooru squints.

"iwa-chan, have you finally gone crazy?"

hajime turns back, nose scrunched in a scowl. "no, tooru. look closely," he points his muddy finger at a distant spot.

a distant spot that slowly moves into the horizon.

"is that a plane? why were you waving at that?"

hajime shrugs, already back to his diligent search for insects.

"it's not like the people can see you."

"it's the idea." he seems to think it over, face set into a deep frown as he concentrates. something in tooru wants to reach out and remove the crease. he holds his hand tightly back, not wanting it to move on its own.

heaven knows hajime brings out the impulse in him.

"they could be leaving home, alone and sad. or coming back, even if it's the last thing they ever want to do. they could be anyone, and.. yeah. it's not like someone can see but," he shuffles awkwardly, "it's the thought that counts. that i'm waving at someone and maybe someone's waving back."

he looks at the sky again, at the sun, not even a hand on his eyes to protect them from the burn.

tooru murmurs, "i don't understand."

"of course. you'd need a brain to understand."

he gasps, hand flitting forward to push hajime onto brown, brown soil. "mean, iwa-chan!"  
  
  
  
  


oikawa tooru has seen colour for as long as he can remember. his earliest memory is of green grey eyes, a small wail, a hand on his stomach, and iwaizumi hajime.

all people are colourblind. it's only after they've touched their soulmate that they see colour. the first one is a flash of their soulmate's eyes.

green grey.

tooru is four years old when he meets hajime, who immediately trips and falls right on him.

they end up on the floor, a pile of chubby limbs and messy hair, their parents reaching forward to console them, tell them that a mere fall isn't enough for them to be crying, hajime's father concerned because his son is never, ever so loud.

it's only when tooru whispers, "his shoes are yellow." that they understand, looking at each other with expressions of mixed horror, happiness, and bewilderment.

tooru's mothers explain very patiently what soulmates are. he looks at hajime and thinks, "oh. i'm going to be in love with him forever."

for the next twenty years, he lives by those words.  
  
  
  
  
  


sometimes, just sometime, tooru wonders if the universe made a mistake with him and hajime.

hajime is good. hajime is kind. hajime is patient and caring and relentless and takes none of tooru's bullshit, so surely he deserves someone just as warm and bright and beautiful.

not tooru. because tooru, no matter what, doesn't ever seem to be good enough.

enough. it's an interesting concept. enough for what, exactly? enough for who?

he keeps wondering about it every night. no matter what the answers are, tooru knows one thing for sure: he will never be that.

tooru thinks if they cut him open, all they'd see is doubt inside.

_this feeling will eat me whole._

the losses gnaw him hollow over the years. at 15, he stands in front of hajime, head bowed, and asks, "will you love me if i'm ordinary?"

hajime, gentle and steady, in the way tooru could never be, his better half, pulls him into his arms and doesn't let go for a long, long time.

"i love you. always have, always will. no matter what." hajime whispers into his hair. "you're the greatest gift the universe could have given me, tooru."

a shaky cry escapes him but tooru doesn't want to weep, not right now. instead he buries himself even deeper into hajime's torso, wishing he could hide in his comforting hold forever.

he focuses on remembering it for decades, hajime's trembling voice, his fingers grazing lightly on tooru's back, his soulmate in his jacket, and tooru can't believe that he doubted them for even a second.

it's always been him and hajime against the world.

tooru keeps that memory locked deep in his heart.  
  
  
  
  


at 24, his heart beats against his ribcage, trying to break out. how can an organ be claustrophobic in his own body?

it's the same memory that he had kept safe in the valves of his soul, he realises, trying to escape before it brings all the arteries of his heart bursting down with it.

hajime looks at him and tooru can feel it, feel his heartbreak mirrored in the familiar teary eyes.

green grey. his home. hajime felt like home, like a sunlit room at dusk, last strands of light falling in through light curtains, illuminating two figures in white and teal prone on a bed, fast asleep and in a tight embrace.

but right now, even though they're a fingertip apart, it feels like he's back in foreign beaches, desperately missing his other half.

all of a sudden, there are a million miles between them all over again, but it's so, so much worse because tooru can touch hajime and feel none of his warmth, none of the love that used to tingle in his stomach.

only a horrible emptiness. the same one hajime used to chase away.

"not in that way, tooru." hajime says.

oh.

_oh_.

he sinks down, staring at his hands.

his whole life, they've been a whole. there were never any doubts about it. hajime and tooru. tooru and hajime. inseperable, invincible, intertwined. lucky to have met each other so early. destined to be together forever.

hajime is his partner, his best friend, his soulmate. hajime shows him all the colours in the world. hajime does not love him.

_this sadness will eat me whole._   
  
  


tooru goes back to argentina. he's never been good at it, facing his feelings.

so he runs away. doesn't tell anyone, boards the first flight back, sits on his seat, and thinks: this is the first time someone's not on the ground, waving me a see you soon.

then he cries his eyes out, hoping the colours would bleed out of them.

hoping he never sees green grey again.

there are over 20 voicemails waiting for him when he sets foot on the ground.

he deletes them without listening. his sister calls to yell at him.

for the first time, he yells back.

he apologizes later, subdued and sullen.

"i never.. we all just thought you both would get married and.."

so did i, he wants to say. he stays silent instead. he doesn't want to think of being fucking married.

she tells him it will be okay. he agrees, having nothing else to reply with.

he ends it with a promise to talk to hajime.

five months later, he keeps that promise.  
  
  
  


"tooru," hajime sounds breathless when he says it, too surprised at hearing his voice.

"did i catch you at a bad time?"

there's a shuffle. "no— no. never a bad time for you."

a slight pause.

"i missed you."

"i missed you too." tooru confesses. "i'm sorry for.. how it ended. i'm sorry it took me half a year to even think of calling you. i'm sorry for putting an entire continent between us. i'm sorry for being—"

"don't say it." hajime pleads. there's a desperate tone to his voice now, one tooru's rarely heard.

"don't take all of the blame. there isn't any to pin on either of us."

"okay."

they don't say anything. they don't end the call either, clinging to the last of the 'us' they'll ever have. tooru stays on til he falls asleep, comforted by the presence of his soulmate after so, so long.

when he wakes up, hajime's left him a text.

_as much as i love to hear you snore, my battery's dying. call me back please, tooru._   
  
  


he knows exactly what will happen when he calls again. knows what truth he has to confront, knows he has to look despair in its eye and let it win, knows he has to love iwaizumi hajime and let him go.

tooru presses the button.  
  
  
  


the world is ancient and vast and terrifying. tooru and hajime probably don't even make the smallest part of it.

so there are, of course, cases where soulmates aren't romantic. there are cases where they've even murdered each other. it's certainly not an anomaly for soulmates to be platonic.

he never thought it would apply to him. to them. the everlasting due no force coul rip apart. 

he's grown from being an insecure middle schooler. grown from the idea of being incomplete without a person.

but from time to time, he'll feel an ache in a phantom limb, an urge to reach out for something, only for fingers to clench on thin air.

he curses his younger self, naive, lovesick fool. so unwaveringly firm on memories and nostalgia and growing old and epics for grandchildren that he never considered one day he'd want to forget it all so desolately.

hajime still feels like home, like the world at dawn from a rooftop, shared earbuds blaring bubblegum pop, bottles of yakult passed between them, threats of pushing the other down the roof if he kissed him with a stinky mouth.

tooru wants to rip it all apart, brick by brick.  
  
  
  
  
  


he learns to live without hajime the way he's learned everything else: with all his heart.

hajime is still his soulmate. tooru would never do this to him, condemn him to a life of stilted conversations and yearning glances.

tooru wouldn't let hajime lose him.

he exchanges one constant companion for another, a ceaseless burn.

_this fire will eat me whole._

and it does. he thows away his phone in the middle of the night to not call hajime and beg him to reconsider.

tooru talks to him two days later, voice not betraying his recent breakdown.

he gets better and worse, so focused on finding a way to live with homesickness that he doesn't notice it fading away.

_oh._

i'm not in love with you anymore, he thinks. what am i supposed to do with myself now?

three years after he left, he returns to japan, meets green grey eyes on the opposite side of the court, and smiles.  
  
  
  
  


he crashes into a muscular back and whines, "iwa-chan, a warning please!"

hajime doesn't even turn to look at him, "shut up, tooru." and continues his waving peacefully.

tooru sighs, steps forward, and for the first time in two decades, joins hajime in waving at planes in the sky.

"you know, i still don't understand why you do this."

"then stop doing it."

"god, you're so mean. i can imagine atsu-chan being tricked by your muscles but how on earth did you manage to get omi-chan too?"

hajime tries to stab him with a tree branch and he laughs, running away, followed by his— "maniac, a pure maniac! you can't kill your soulmate hajime!" — partner.

he keeps running into that endless horizon, chasing the sun, knowing that no matter what, hajime will always follow.

where hajime ends, tooru finds himself.  
  
  
  
  


sugawara koushi was born with the ability to see all colours.

people assume he's already met his soulmate and he doesn't have the heart to correct them, doesn't have the patience to see the pity flash in their eyes.

almost thirty years of his life, he's grown used to the idea of being 'unbonded' forever. he's never felt the need of romantic fulfillment in his life, but god it would be nice to come home to someone and ask them about their day and hold them and—

yeah.

but he's also completely comfortable with the idea of living alone.

oikawa tooru crashes into his life like a toppled tractor, with all the grace of a squirrel, and tilts koushi's world on its axis.

as much as he knows about oikawa, he's considered the 'fortunate' one. meeting your soulmate so early on, knowing them all your life, having them through thick and thin, knowing that no matter what, there's always going to be one persom for you, and actually having that person? that's considered a blessing.

what a load of bullshit.

he had seen them: iwaizumi and oikawa. so tuned into each other, so aware of every move the other made, like two socks in a pair, contrasting but harmonizing with each other's attritubes so beautifully it was hard to not believe in love when you looked at them.

so when oikawa offers to pay for his ruined jacket — "no problem! i'm a professional volleyball player. at least let me get you coffee for old time's sake" — and told him they'd broken up, he had looked at the man with pure disbelief for at least a minute before shrugging it off.

"what?" oikawa asks, "no prying questions, no 'oh my god you were soulmates'?"

koushi grins. "i'll pass. for a man with no soulmate, i sure do get hit with a lot of prying questions about that."

something flashes in oikawa's eyes, understanding, acceptance.

no pity, koushi thinks. no offers of condolence for 'missing out'.

he smiles.  
  
  


the next time they meet is on kageyama and hinata's wedding.

"mr. refreshing! you sure do live up to your infamous name, sight for my poor, sore eyes."

"i recall you being the one and only person to ever call me that."

oikawa smiles. he does that a lot now, more open than he used to. koushi isn't sure why or how he noticed that.

"i never did figure out what to call you. suga-san feels so serious. or should i try suga-sensei?" he asks, teasing.

"such a pity that's reserved only for my students." koushi has to fight his own growing smirk. "although you would fit into them easily."

oikawa laughs out loud, surprising even himself.

"suga-chan, you're so horrible. terrible. evil. i came to you for solace and you treat me like this."

koushi joins him in pearly laughter.  
  
  


oikawa ends up staying in japan for months. somehow, koushi finds himself meeting with the man frequently.

okay, fine. almost daily.

he doesn't know how oikawa changes to tooru, doesn't know when he starts bringing home more groceries, doesn't know why he makes that second key and, embarrassingly enough, offers it to tooru.

koushi doesn't know how he ends up driving tooru to the airport when he leaves, standing on the terminal, feeling like he has to spill his heart out or else it'll crawl out of his throat to make its way to tooru. he smothers it down instead and smiles, wishing him luck.

when tooru finally disappears from his sight, koushi sets his pace back to his car before his feet can do something abominably stupid like running after tooru as if he's a rom com movie character chasing the love of their life.

wait.

oh.

_fuck._   
  
  
  
  
  


tooru lands in argentina with an easy grin and a heavy heart.

he reaches for his phone.

"tooru?"

"i met this person. i didn't think i would, not so intensely.. but i miss them. they make me feel like i'm good. happy."

hajime hums. "then tell them."

"it's— it's not that easy!"

"is it like that or have you just convinced yourself otherwise with powerpoints?"

tooru runs a hand through his hair, sighing.

"that's how everyone should live their lives! logically! pros and co—"

there's a voice from the background, sakusa, he recognises, murmuring softly.

"is this a bad time?"

"no, tooru." hajime answers. "never a bad time for you, remember? just know that it will be okay. say it whenever you're ready. it will go well."

"and i'm pretty sure he likes you too." he hangs up before tooru explodes.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


tooru calls him almost everyday. they barely make it past five minutes, with clashing timezones and their jobs, but somehow those five minutes alone make koushi get out of bed.

the first time he lays food on the table for two, koushi has to sit down, do various breathing exercises, and rest his head in his hands for a few minutes to calm himself and not scream out loud.

god, he's miserable. pathetic. an absolute disaster. ugh.

he needs to be refreshed. needs to try out different things to detox oikawa tooru out of his heart.

the next day, he comes home with groceries for two and a cat and spends half an hour telling kiyoko that he's an absolute failure at life at a proud 29 years of age.

at least his daily 5 minute serotonin source conversations keep him happy.

"her name's kimiko." he says, "she reminds me of you."

"ah, i feel so flattered. kimiko, hmm.. is she our child then?"

tooru's uneasiness grows the longer the silence stretches.

".. what are we, tooru?"

he inhales.

"because i don't want to be just a rebound. i'm not– i'm not your soulmate. i can't show you any goddamn colours and i'm not your destined half or—"

"you're not. you'll never be my soulmate." tooru says, "hajime gave me rainbows and infinity, all these pretty sceneries, but koushi, i swear, none of them mean anything if i don't get to see them with you."

"i don't care about fate. i choose you. i'll always choose you. so what if we're not destined? i'll search for you. a part of my heart will always be looking for you, wherever you are, whatever universe it is."

"oh," is all koushi can choke out, relief and fondness and tears altogether overwhelming him. "i love you."  
  
  
  
  
  


tooru gives the address and gratefully sinks back into the taxi seats.

god, does he hate flights.

at least i'm home, he thinks. that's all that matters. i'm going home to him.

koushi is home. home is polaroids stuck with fridge magnets, their cat and plant children, lazy mornings and shared sweaters, and the feeling of being more than enough. 

his hand moves to his chest instinctively, feeling the circular jewelry hanging from his neck underneath the jacket.

say yes, he prays. please say yes.

hajime told him koushi would never say no. tooru, respectfully, would beg to differ.

( "then beg."

"hajime, can you please not, for once, kill my vibe?" )

he's thrumming with nerves, tooru realises. he's excited. he's anxious. he's the happiest he's ever been.

he doesn't remember the apartment being this close to the airport. oh god, he thought he had more time.

tooru hasn't even read his speech one last time again to make sure he doesn't mess up, holy shit.

his feet carry him up the stairs to a familiar red door subconsciously. he's barely reached for the handle that it flings wide open and a flash of silver and blue jumps at him, knocking him flat on the ground.

by the time his sight has cleared from stars, koushi's smile is set wide on his face, brown eyes sparkling, "welcome home!"

god, he's gorgeous. tooru trails one hand on his cheek, over his mole.

_this man will eat me whole._

the other reaches into his pocket, unveiling a box as he blurts out, "will you marry me?"

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> lord forgive me for this monstrosity


End file.
